In Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital, a
wounded Israeli soldier may share a room with a wounded Palestinian militant.
There, the medical staff cooperates perfectly, beyond politics.
Tonight on NIGHTLINE, you'll see Palestinians and Israelis
work side by side, helping other Palestinians and Israelis. It's an island of
collaboration in the midst of chaos.
This is a story about treating one another as equal
and human!
To producers say: "The doctors and nurses
at this hospital put that principal into practice under the most difficult
conditions every day. They try to save everyone that comes to them for
care. I think there is a lesson here for all of us, and in tonight's
broadcast, one small reason to still hope that there may be peace some
day."
Israeli physician Naftali Kaminski
(Kamins@sheba.health.gov.il OR Kamins@itsa.ucsf.edu) will be interviewed.
When on a fellowship in San Francisco's U.C. Medical Center, he entered into
his first sustained, in-depth relationship with a Palestinian. It changed
his life.
Ever since, Naftali has been helping others enter in
to Dialogue -- changing lives.

But tonight we're going to show you something you've
probably never seen. A place where Palestinians and Israelis work side by
side, helping other Palestinians and Israelis. It's the hospital where
the victims of much of the violence in and around Jerusalem go for care.
And it's an island in the midst of chaos.
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I think it's always been a tradition, or more
accurately an aspiration, that in times of conflict, when the immediate battle
is over, that the wounded from both sides receive medical care from doctors on
either side. This happens sometimes in war, but not always. But
tonight, correspondent John Donvan is back in the Middle East, where he spent
much of his career, and he's going to show you a very special place where that
tradition is followed every day.
The Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. It's where
the wounded from today's bombing went, and the latest reports say there are
more than forty. It's where some of those wounded by the Israeli
incursion into the Palestinian town of Ramallah went for care.
The staff consists of Israelis and Palestinians,
working side by side.
They say there is no place for politics in the
hospital, although the reality is far more complex. And they treat
Palestinians and Israelis side by side. A wounded Israelis soldier may
share a room with a wounded Palestinian militant. You can imagine the
tension. And yet the doctors and nurses say that is the only way they can
function. And perhaps, at the same time, they can set an example for the
rest of that troubled area, showing that it is possible to work, and live, and
sometimes die, together.
Every time we cover the Middle East, we receive
countless emails, from partisans on both sides, arguing that some deaths are an
outrage, acts of terrorism, murder, while others are the result of legitimate
self-defense or legitimate reaction to oppression. I have always argued
in these emails and elsewhere, that for the innocents, the children and others
on both sides whose deaths come from a conflict they will never understand,
that for those innocents it doesn't matter.
Each death is a cause for grief, and unbearable
sadness. And yes, sometimes those deaths lead to new deaths through acts
of retaliation. But I see every one of these deaths as a tragedy.
But all I offer on this is words.
The doctors and nurses at this hospital put that
principal into practice under the most difficult conditions every day.
They try to save everyone that comes to them for care.
I think there is a lesson here for all of us, and in
tonight's broadcast, one small reason to still hope that there may be peace
some day.